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Kindly lay off sarcasm. I understand the temptation, but succumbing to it will cause HN to become a place for wenting anger. I mean just look at the thread of c
by DenisM 15y ago
Kindly lay off sarcasm. I understand the temptation, but succumbing to it will cause HN to become a place for wenting anger. I mean just look at the thread of comments below yours. Is that what you want HN to be?
Let's make it a place for civilized discourse instead... shall we?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- sliverstorm 15y agoI don't mind the occassional visit to sarcasm and humor on HN, especially when it is relatively high-brow, poignant, and relevant. Not that I would claim I always manage to instill poigniancy into my jibes.
- cosgroveb 15y agoIs satire, which often makes very heavy use of sarcasm, to be considered uncivilized?
- kelnos 15y agoIn this case it just wasn't funny. (Yes, I know, subjective, blah blah blah. I don't care.)
- moultano 15y agoUnless it's exceptionally good then we're better off without it. The problem with sarcasm is that it insulates you from having to make an argument yourself. All you have to do is mimic your opponent and make them sound ridiculous. It's almost inherently a straw man fallacy unless it is exceptionally careful. If you can't use sarcasm you're forced to state what you believe in positive terms, which makes for much more fruitful discussion. It's like the "passive voice" of argumentation. There are some cases where you just have to, but your writing gets better if you categorically avoid it.
- MrMan 15y agothere is no room for satire on HN.
- jerrya 15y agoHacker News is a bit like KAOS. Unless you're at the North Pole, there is no joking here.
- jbooth 15y agoKindly lay off scolding. I understand the temptation, but succumbing to it will cause HN to become a place for silly meta discussions. I mean just look at how much longer you made this thread. PS there was an actual point there. You can disagree if you want I guess, but meta discussions are always stupid - post the disagreement instead.
- mooism2 15y agoYou hid your actual point in sarcasm so well, I have no idea whether your point was merely "rah rah American democracy is shit" or something more insightful. What was it?
- jbooth 15y agoThat we as techies have a fundamentally different view of this than legislators, and legislators typically are going to listen to whoever pays to play. Honestly listen, as in they know what they don't know and are trying to learn. But they only hear part of the story.
- chico_dusty 15y agoKnow what? Humorless bores who think that satire and sarcasm has no place in civilized discourse mostly come off as uneducated rubes, and not as they think, champions of great debate.